Welcome to Windows 7 Forums. Our forum is dedicated to helping you find support and solutions for any problems regarding your Windows 7 PC be it Dell, HP, Acer, Asus or a custom build. We also provide an extensive Windows 7 tutorial section that covers a wide range of tips and tricks.

Windows 7: Custom Made Sig and Avatar [7]

I got the Photoshop trial today, as I'm doing Visual Media for school. I then thought, why don't I start using it for making sigs/avatars etc? My question to you is, how did you start learning to use Photoshop? Also, do you recommend Photoshop or any other software? Did you use tutorials or just have a play around with it to get the feel of it?

Hi Jaidyn,
It's a combination of playing around with the software yourself and following tutorials. If you are completely unfamiliar with Photoshop (CS or Elements), then you will probably feel rather lost (I did). Once I started reading up on tutorials, I could concentrate on individual features and their functions and later decide which ones I wanted to use for which kind of sig.
Also, I have a very good friend who is a Photoshop fan, plus my GFX mentors over here ;-D If you have...
1) friends or know people who are Photoshop fans and can "mentor" you
2) where to download which tutorials (there are different levels: beginners, intermediate etc.)
3) a lot of passion, patience, time and stamina (you also have to be ready to get frustrated every now and then)
...then you'll enjoy Photoshop. Be careful: it is highly addictive once you get the hang of it, and you might end up sitting late at night until your eyes are as square as your screen. Make sure you do not let the joys of Photoshopping distract you from focusing on school and on "real life" ;-D

About programs:
-Adobe Photoshop CS is the leading and most popular image editing program out there. You can get a student version of this package - the "normal" non-student version is horribly expensive.
-Adobe Photoshop Elements (which I use) is the watered-down version of Photoshop CS. It does not, for example, have the highly cherished Pen/Bezier Tool. I use it in combination with:
-GIMP. GIMP is said to be almost as powerful as Photoshop CS and is a cross-platform program. And: it is free of charge :-DGIMP - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
The most recent version is 2.6.11; when you open/use it for the very first time, you will have to get used to the user interface, which consists of three separate windows. A single-window-interface is foreseen in version 2.8, but it is unclear when this version will be released (end of this year or beginning of 2012). Once you get used to GIMP, you will be very happy with it. I love it )
-CorelDraw Graphics Suite X5. Corel is one of Adobe's main competitors; I do not like it that much, to be honest; I find the UI a bit complicated; but other GFXers like Archie or Nick have perfect mastery over both CorelDraw and Adobe Photoshop, so they'll be able to tell you more.
-Paint.NET. A free and popular program (especially for beginners) for Windows users only. You need to have Microsoft NET Framework installed (hence the name). I do not have any experience with it, but I have often seen it recommended over here.

Uhm...That's all I can think of for now My co-GFXers will definitely give you some more valuable input.

Hi Jaidyn,
Be careful: it is highly addictive once you get the hang of it, and you might end up sitting late at night until your eyes are as square as your screen. Make sure you do not let the joys of Photoshopping distract you from focusing on school and on "real life" ;-D

Wise words there written by the young lady from Switzerland.....I hope Jaidyn heeds them.

Learn by fooling around on it, once you get an idea of what you want try a tutorial. Hands on learning is the most fun. :)

I totally agree. It's just that when I got into Adobe Flash, playing around didn't help at all. It was so confusing I went straight into tutorials. Hopefully, PS isn't the same. :)

Quote: Originally Posted by noobvious

Quote: Originally Posted by Athene

Hi Jaidyn,
Be careful: it is highly addictive once you get the hang of it, and you might end up sitting late at night until your eyes are as square as your screen. Make sure you do not let the joys of Photoshopping distract you from focusing on school and on "real life" ;-D

Wise words there written by the young lady from Switzerland.....I hope Jaidyn heeds them.

I sure will.

Thanks a bunch, Athene. Your post was incredibly helpful, I would rep you but I have to 'spread it around'. I've bookmarked the page though so I can rep it when possible.

I do have a friend that is very good at Photoshop so I might ask him to help me out. But to start with, I might just have a play around. I'll see what advice your 'GFX mentors' too.

I might also see if I can burrow a school laptop. All of the school PC's and laptops have PS CS5 on it so I might be able to use that if I really get into it.

Thanks for the kind words, Jaidyn, I'm glad I could help a bit I forgot to mention that Nick also uploads great video tutorials on youtube for us GFXers :-D You can find his channel over here:poomanuk&#39;s Channel - YouTube

Lots of the tutorials are for CorelDraw, though, but I think most of them can be followed in Photoshop CS as well. I'm sure Nick will tell you more: he's currently helping me patch up my wonky font "skills" ;-D

I got the Photoshop trial today, as I'm doing Visual Media for school. I then thought, why don't I start using it for making sigs/avatars etc? My question to you is, how did you start learning to use Photoshop? Also, do you recommend Photoshop or any other software? Did you use tutorials or just have a play around with it to get the feel of it?

Custom Made Sig and Avatar [3](Continued from - https://www.sevenforums.com/customization/27697-custom-made-sig-avatar-continued.html )
You Want Custom made signature or an avatar? Then me or another one of our artists here at Sevenforums will make one on your requests you tell us how it should look like, and we will try...